Fiktiv USA - WFOR-TV

WFOR-TV, virtual channel 4 (UHF digital channel 22), is a CBS owned-and-operated television station licensed to Miami, Florida, United States and also serving Fort Lauderdale. The station is owned by the CBS Television Stations subsidiary of ViacomCBS, as part of a duopoly with MyNetworkTV affiliate WBFS-TV (channel 33). The two stations share studios on Northwest 18th Terrace in Doral, near the Miami International Airport; WFOR-TV's transmitter is located in Andover, Florida.

The station first signed on the air on September 20, 1967, as WCIX-TV, broadcasting on VHF channel 6. The station was originally owned by the locally-based Coral Television Corporation. General Cinema Corporation acquired a controlling interest in Coral Television and WCIX in August 1972.

The channel 6 frequency was allocated to Miami by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in June 1957, as part of a minor reorganization nationwide of VHF channel assignments. The channel was reallocated to the city of South Miami when Coral Television was awarded a construction permit to build channel 6 in April 1964. In February 1967, seven months before WCIX went on the air, Coral Television successfully convinced the FCC to move the community of license back to Miami proper, where the station could serve more viewers.

WCIX built a transmitter tower in Homestead, which was 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Miami, farther south than the Miami–Fort Lauderdale market's other television stations. This arrangement was necessary to protect WPTV (on adjacent channel 5) in West Palm Beach and WDBO-TV (now WKMG-TV, and also on channel 6) in Orlando. As a result, Miami's channel 6 only provided a "Grade B" signal to Fort Lauderdale and was virtually unviewable in the northern portion of Broward County. The station made up for this shortfall in its coverage area by signing on translator stations throughout Broward County and in Boca Raton (part of the West Palm Beach market) in 1972. Initially broadcasting on channel 61 from the First National Bank building in Fort Lauderdale, channel 64 from atop the Boca Raton Hotel, and channel 69 from the Home Federal building in Hollywood, WCIX later added a 1,000-watt translator on channel 33 transmitting from Hallandale. The channel 33 translator was shut down in early 1984 to allow future sister station WBFS-TV to sign on; as a result, WCIX lost significant circulation in Palm Beach County. Channel 69 was relinquished when the full-power allotment it used was activated as WYHS-TV in 1988; the license remained active, however.

WCIX-TV was the first general entertainment independent station in the Miami–Fort Lauderdale market, and the second in Florida, after WSUN-TV (whose channel 38 allocation is now occupied by WTTA) in St. Petersburg converted to an independent in 1965. Channel 6 ran the typical independent format of children's programs, sitcoms, movies, and other local and syndicated programs. WCIX was also one of the very few stations not owned by Kaiser Broadcasting to carry The Lou Gordon Program from WKBD-TV in Detroit in the 1970s. It was also one of the first stations in the area to offer programming in both English and Spanish to serve South Florida's growing Hispanic population. From the 1970s to the early 1980s, WCIX had widespread cable penetration throughout Florida and was seen on cable systems as far north as Tampa Bay and Orlando. Outside the Miami market, WCIX shared its cable channel space with another Miami station, WKID-TV (channel 51, now WSCV), which presented older movies and sitcoms after WCIX left the air.

The station was the only general entertainment independent in the market until 1976, when WHFT-TV (channel 45) was purchased by LeSEA Broadcasting and switched a hybrid schedule of general entertainment and religious programs. In 1980, WHFT was sold to the Trinity Broadcasting Network and switched to religious programming full-time, leaving WCIX as the market's lone independent once again. However, it would receive competition once again in 1982 when WDZL (channel 39, now WSFL-TV) signed on.

General Cinema traded WCIX-TV to Cincinnati-based Taft Broadcasting in early 1983 in exchange for WGR-TV (now WGRZ) in Buffalo, New York and $70 million. Under Taft, WCIX (the station officially dropped the -TV suffix from its call sign in 1984) continued to be the leading independent station in South Florida; the station moved from its original studios on Brickell Avenue in downtown Miami to its current facility in Doral (then an unincorporated area, now a separate city) in 1985.

On October 9, 1986, WCIX became a charter affiliate of the newly launched Fox Broadcasting Company, and was one of a handful of VHF stations to affiliate with the network upon its launch. The station was essentially still independent since Fox offered only an hour of late-night programming at the time (consisting only of the talk show The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers) and would only add two nights of primetime programming by the end of the station's tenure with the network.

After losing a bid to purchase then-CBS affiliate WTVJ (then on channel 4) from then-owner Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., CBS made a half-hearted offer to buy WCIX from Taft in January 1987. Taft declined, but a month later opted to sell all of its independent stations and Fox affiliates, including WCIX, to the TVX Broadcast Group. However, TVX became mired in debt as a result of the purchase, and began to sell off many of its medium- and small-market stations. Although TVX originally planned to keep WCIX, the company eventually decided that the station would have to be divested. One of the primary factors in the decision to sell was that WCIX was TVX's only VHF station, whereas its sister stations were all broadcasting on the UHF band. KKR sold WTVJ to NBC in September 1987. However, CBS' affiliation contract with WTVJ did not expire until December 31, 1988, as did NBC's contract with WSVN (channel 7), which had served as its Miami affiliate since that station signed on in July 1956. WSVN's owner, Sunbeam Television, was not willing to end channel 7's affiliation with NBC one year early. NBC was thus forced to run WTVJ as a CBS affiliate for over a year—a situation that did not sit well with either NBC or CBS.

With the defection of WTVJ looming, CBS made another offer to TVX to acquire WCIX in the spring of 1988. The two sides agreed to a final deal in August of that year. In the interim, channel 6 agreed to air CBS programs that WTVJ chose to preempt. Meanwhile, WSVN fought to retain its relationship with NBC, but later relented and approached CBS for an affiliation deal. CBS turned the offer down and went forward with its plans to purchase WCIX despite its weak signal in Broward County.

The affiliation changeover officially occurred on January 1, 1989: the entire CBS network schedule moved to WCIX, while NBC's full schedule of programs moved to WTVJ. Fox moved its programming over to WSVN (although the station advertised itself as an independent upon the switch); most of WCIX's syndicated programming inventory went to WDZL. CBS formally finalized its purchase of WCIX the next day. In the case of Miami–Fort Lauderdale, it is one of two television markets in which the Fox affiliation moved from one VHF station to another (the other being Honolulu, Hawaii if stations not operating as satellites are counted, when Fox affiliate KHNL and NBC affiliate KHON-TV swapped affiliations on January 1, 1996) – and the only known instance of a longtime "Big Three" affiliate switching to Fox prior to Fox's 1994 affiliation agreement with New World Communications and other affiliation transactions involving the network that resulted from the deal.

Despite a significant technical overhaul and upgraded programming, WCIX struggled as a CBS station due to its weak signal in Fort Lauderdale. CBS anticipated this issue and, in conjunction with the purchase of WCIX, persuaded West Palm Beach's longtime ABC affiliate WPEC (channel 12) to switch to CBS. WPEC replaced UHF station WTVX (channel 34) in order to give the network a stronger signal in northern Broward County. In 1989, translator W27AQ was launched on channel 27 from a transmitter in Pompano Beach. A transmitter at Coral Springs, W55BO, was launched in 1993. The former channel 69 transmitter license was reactivated on channel 58 as W58BU in 1994.

WCIX's transmission tower collapsed on August 24, 1992, as a result of destructive winds caused by Hurricane Andrew, forcing channel 6 off the air. Within hours, the station resumed broadcasts via the channel 27 translator at Pompano Beach. WDZL began carrying WCIX's newscasts the next day. Within several days, WCIX was back on the air using an emergency transmitter on a borrowed tower near the Dade-Broward line; as a result of being further north, the facility had to operate at reduced power. In the wake of the devastation, WCIX's staff helped create Neighbors Helping Neighbors, a grassroots charitable organization which aimed to help people rebuild. The organization lives on as Neighbors 4 Neighbors, which is still supported by the station.

On July 14, 1994, Westinghouse Broadcasting (Group W) signed a long-term affiliation deal with CBS, part of which resulted in three Westinghouse-owned stations (WBZ-TV in Boston, WJZ-TV in Baltimore and KYW-TV in Philadelphia) becoming CBS affiliates. As a sidebar, a subsequent deal between NBC and a new joint venture between Group W and CBS was reached in November 1994, with CBS selling the channel 6 transmitter facility and license to NBC as compensation for the loss of Westinghouse-owned NBC affiliates KYW-TV and WBZ-TV. In return, Group W/CBS received the stronger channel 4 transmitter facility, license, and cash as compensation for the loss of Philadelphia's WCAU-TV, which was being acquired by NBC. NBC also included two of its owned-and-operated stations, KCNC-TV in Denver and KUTV in Salt Lake City (which was acquired earlier that year), in the trade agreement with Group W/CBS.

At 1:00 a.m. on September 10, 1995, WCIX and WTVJ swapped channel positions. The entire WCIX intellectual unit (CBS affiliation, programming, and staff) moved from channel 6 to channel 4, returning CBS programming to channel 4 after a six-year hiatus. WTVJ had been Miami's CBS affiliate from its sign-on in March 1949 until the 1989 switch to NBC. Along with the frequency change came a new set of call letters, WFOR-TV, changing the reference to the station's channel number from its original allocation to its new one. Due to the way the asset exchange deal was structured, the two stations were required to swap licenses in addition to the transmitting facilities. As a result, WFOR-TV legally operated under WTVJ's old license on channel 4 through the end of the analog broadcasting era; however, the studios of both WFOR-TV and WTVJ remained the same at the time of the swap (WTVJ has since moved to a new facility). The translators remained with the channel 6 facility.

Under the terms of the deal, CBS sold controlling interest (55%) in WFOR-TV to Westinghouse, while retaining a minority interest (45%). WFOR became wholly owned by CBS once again when the Westinghouse Electric Corporation merged with CBS at the end of 1995.

Since 1998, through CBS' broadcast contract with the AFC, WFOR has been the primary station for the Miami Dolphins; starting in 2014, with the NFL's new "cross-flex" broadcast rules, more games can be broadcast on WFOR. The station also aired local coverage of Super Bowls XLI and XLIV, both of which were played at Hard Rock Stadium.

In 2000, Viacom bought CBS, making WFOR a sister station to UPN affiliate WBFS-TV, which subsequently moved into WFOR's studio facility (Viacom was also the owner of some of WFOR's sister stations under TVX by this time). The station also handled some support operations for WTVX in West Palm Beach until it was sold to the Cerberus Capital Management subsidiary Four Points Media Group in 2007. WFOR-TV and WBFS-TV became properties of CBS Corporation, when Viacom split up its assets in December 2005; the split would be reversed 14 years later, as the conglomerates would remerge, making both stations part of ViacomCBS.

As of January 2021, WFOR presently broadcasts 32½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 5½ hours each weekday, 2½ hours on Saturdays and 3 hours on Sundays); it also produces an additional 16 hours of newscasts weekly (with 3 hours each weekday and a half-hour each on Saturdays and Sundays) for sister station WBFS.

On January 11, 2010, WFOR-TV began broadcasting its newscasts from a temporary set in preparation for production upgrades to broadcast its news programming in high definition. After about two weeks of preparation, on January 24, 2010, WFOR-TV became the last major English-language station in the Miami television market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition. The newscasts on sister station WBFS-TV were also included in the upgrade. The upgrade included a major retooling of the station's news set, the purchase of new studio equipment, changes to master control operations, and the implementation of new graphics. Along with the revamp, a new logo was introduced, which would further emphasize a "South Florida feel".

On December 4, 2017, WFOR expanded CBS 4 News This Morning from 5–7 a.m. to 4:30–7 a.m.

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WBFS-TV, virtual channel 33 (UHF digital channel 32), is a MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station licensed to Miami, Florida, United States and also serving Fort Lauderdale. The station is owned by the CBS Television Stations subsidiary of ViacomCBS, as part of a duopoly with CBS owned-and-operated station WFOR-TV (channel 4). The two stations share studios on Northwest 18th Terrace in Doral, near the Miami International Airport; WBFS-TV's transmitter is located on Northwest 210th Street in Miramar. There is no separate website for WBFS-TV; instead, it is integrated with that of sister station WFOR-TV.

WBFS-TV is one of two ViacomCBS-owned stations carrying the News Corp-owned MyNetworkTV service, alongside sister station WSBK-TV in Boston.

Prior to the station's launch, the UHF channel 33 frequency in the Miami–Fort Lauderdale market was occupied by a low-power translator of competing independent WCIX (channel 6, now WFOR-TV on channel 4), whose primary full-power signal could not be received very well in Broward County as its transmitter was located in Homestead, positioned farther southwest than the transmitters of other Miami area stations in order to prevent signal interference with WPTV-TV in West Palm Beach and WDBO-TV (now WKMG-TV) in Orlando.

WBFS first signed on the air on December 9, 1984, originally operating as an independent station. the station was owned by Grant Broadcasting. The station originally operated from studio facilities located on Northwest 52nd Avenue in Miami Gardens. The station ran numerous off-network reruns of classic television sitcoms from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, along with a number of cartoons. It also ran some off-network drama series, and classic western and martial arts movies that were usually shown on Saturday afternoons. WBFS soon made a name for itself in South Florida for its slick on-air look. It billed itself as "Florida's Super Station" (a slogan that present-day Tampa Bay sister station WTOG also used around the same time) and frequently used CGI graphics of near-network quality (similar graphics would be implemented on WGBS-TV (now WPSG) in Philadelphia and WGBO-TV in Chicago after Grant acquired those stations). The station was available on cable in the West Palm Beach area as well, and had identified as "Miami/Fort Lauderdale/West Palm Beach" in station IDs until the 1990s.

However while the station itself turned a profit, Grant overextended itself while buying programming for its stations. In December 1986, shortly after Christmas, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The pressure came from debt with Viacom, which owned the distribution rights for half of the programs broadcast on Grant's stations. In January 1987, a deal was made to cut back the runs of the shows that the stations owned and pay reduced prices for licensing them.

Even with Grant's financial problems, WBFS continued to do well, and scored a major coup by becoming the on-air home of the NBA's new Miami Heat franchise in 1988. It added rights to games from the Florida Marlins of Major League Baseball's National League and the Florida Panthers of the NHL in 1993. However, Grant Broadcasting was unable to get out of debt, forcing the company into receivership in 1989. Combined Broadcasting, a company consisting of executives from the program distributors that Grant owed payments to, took over ownership of WBFS and its sister stations. The company pumped a lot of money into WBFS and WGBS, but ran primarily barter programming on WGBO.

In 1994, Combined sold WBFS and WGBS to Paramount Stations Group (which was soon acquired by former Grant creditor Viacom after it acquired Paramount Pictures that year), which sold its original Philadelphia station, WTXF-TV, to Fox Television Stations. Almost immediately, Paramount announced that WBFS and WGBS would join the soon-to-be created United Paramount Network (UPN), which was created through a programming partnership with owner Chris-Craft Industries (Viacom/Paramount itself would not acquire partial ownership of the network until 1996). WGBO was sold to Univision, which entered the deal after its then-affiliate in Chicago, WCIU-TV, refused to drop English-language programs from its schedule and become an exclusively Spanish-language programming outlet.

On January 16, 1995, WBFS became a UPN owned-and-operated station at the network's inception. The station continued to refer to itself as "WBFS TV 33" for some time afterward, but soon rebranded as "UPN 33". It had acquired more recent off-network sitcoms in the years following and soon began to add more first-run syndicated talk and reality shows. The station began to cut back on children's programs, such as The Wacky World of Tex Avery, Pokémon, Sailor Moon, Mummies Alive! and DuckTales from 1998 onward. By 2002, the station was only running children's programs during the morning hours.

In 2000, Paramount's parent company Viacom merged with CBS, making WBFS a sister station to CBS owned-and-operated station WFOR-TV, years after that station (as WCIX) shut down the channel 33 translator to make room for WBFS. As a result of the merger, WBFS moved into WFOR's facilities in Doral. When WAMI-TV (channel 69) became a Telefutura owned-and-operated station in January 2002, WBFS picked up a few of WAMI's former shows, including Fox Kids (the block, which was not carried on Fox affiliate WSVN (channel 7), by then was only offered on Saturdays). WBFS continued to run what eventually became 4Kids TV until the block was discontinued by Fox on December 27, 2008. Its successor, Weekend Marketplace, does not air at all in the Miami market. UPN ended its children's block, Disney's One Too, in August 2003. After Viacom split into two companies in December 2005, WBFS came under the ownership of CBS Corporation.

On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Time Warner's Warner Bros. Entertainment division announced that they would dissolve UPN and The WB, and move some of their programming to a newly created network, The CW. The network immediately announced a deal to affiliate with 15 stations owned by Tribune Broadcasting, with that company's WB affiliate WBZL (channel 39, now WSFL-TV) serving as its Miami affiliate. It would not have been an upset had WBFS been chosen as a charter station, however. CW officials were on record as preferring the "strongest" WB and UPN stations for the new network, and Miami–Fort Lauderdale was one of the few markets where the WB and UPN stations both had relatively strong viewership.

On February 22 of that year, News Corporation announced the launch of a new "sixth" network called MyNetworkTV, which would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division Twentieth Television. Although the service was created to give UPN and WB-affiliated stations that would not be joining The CW an alternate programming option, CBS initially announced on May 1, that WBFS, along with its Boston sister station WSBK-TV, would not join the network. It is believed that CBS's initial decision to deny its larger UPN stations affiliation agreements with MyNetworkTV was in retaliation against Fox for refusing to affiliate any of its UPN affiliates in markets where CBS Corporation or Tribune did not already sign deals to carry The CW with that network. However, on July 12, it was announced that WBFS would become South Florida's MyNetworkTV affiliate. The network debuted on September 5, 2006, and at that point, WBFS changed its on-air branding to "My 33".

Occasionally as time permits, WBFS may take on the responsibility of airing CBS network programs whenever WFOR-TV is unable to in the event of extended breaking news or severe weather coverage. WBFS has been known to air Miami Dolphins games that air on ESPN's Monday Night Football and games scheduled to air on CBS which are postponed due to weather (usually hurricanes).

WBFS was the alternate home of ACC Network football telecasts when sister station WFOR was not available. The station was the main ACC Network affiliate in South Florida for basketball telecasts, primarily airing weekend broadcasts; it also carried weeknight telecasts involving the Miami Hurricanes. These packages ceased to exist following the 2018–19 academic year as a result of the creation of the new cable-only ACC Network. The station also previously aired syndicated Big East telecasts.

In 2020, Inter Miami CF announced that alongside WFOR-TV, WBFS will carry regionally televised matches.

WFOR-TV presently produces 16 hours of locally produced newscasts each week for WBFS (with 3 hours each weekday and a half-hour each on Saturdays and Sundays).

Soon after the Viacom-CBS merger in 2001, WBFS began to air a nightly 10:00 p.m. newscast that was produced by WFOR. This was the third primetime news broadcast in the market after WSVN's long-established 10:00 p.m. newscast (which debuted in January 1989, when it became a Fox affiliate) and a WTVJ-produced newscast in that slot on WB affiliate WBZL. In 2004, WBFS added a two-hour-long extension of WFOR's weekday morning newscast, airing from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m., which replaced children's programming in that timeslot and initially competed against WSVN's morning newscast Today in Florida.

On January 24, 2010, WFOR became the last major English-language station in the Miami market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition; the newscasts on WBFS were included in the upgrade. At some point in September, the 10 p.m. newscast was expanded to one hour on weeknights while remaining a half-hour on weekends.